Commenter “huxley” wonders, as does commenter “Mike K”:
“The other day I read a number that I have trouble accepting. It was that 50% of Democrat contributions come from Jews.”
Mike K:
I saw that too and wondered. Dunno.
I do believe that 10/7 has changed the game with Americans and American Jews.
It’s too early to tell whether that last sentence is true, but I can certainly check on the first part.
It took almost no time at all to discover what I believe is its origin, in this Jerusalem Post article written in September of 2016, shortly before the 2016 Trump/Clinton election. The headline goes like this: “US Jews contribute half of all donations to the Democratic Party.” Sounds similar to what is referenced in the comment by huxley and the one by Mike K, but right off the bat I noticed one difference: not “Democrats” but “the Democratic Party.” A subtle difference but perhaps a meaningful one, because many donations are to candidates rather than the party. And does the claim mean half of the total money collected, or half of all the individuals who donate?
Right under the headline we have this startling statistic in a subheadline: “Jewish donors give 25% of the Republican National Convention’s cash.” Now, that’s interesting; it seems Jews in general donate a lot to politics (I’m pretty sure they donate a disproportionate amount to charity, as well). And then in this article I discovered that for that same election cycle:
In 2016, 22% of Democrats and Democratic leaners and 10% Republicans and Republican leaners reported making a donation, according to data from ANES. This marks the first election since at least 1992 when Democrats have been significantly more likely than Republicans to donate.
So that year there were lots more Democrat donors in general, at least by percentages. Also, higher-income and more educated people were more likely to make donations, and I’m pretty sure that Jews are somewhat over-represented among those groups.
Then there’s this rather contrary piece of information regarding the same year:
Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago. …
But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates …
It seems that 138 of the families gave to GOP candidates and 20 families gave to Democrats. There are no numbers for the total monetary amount given, but it’s a lot, as you can see by this:
The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30, according to the most recent available Federal Election Commission filings and other data, while an additional 200 families gave more than $100,000. Together, the two groups contributed well over half the money in the presidential election — the vast majority of it supporting Republicans.
It says “the presidential election” and the “Republicans” plural. Does this include the primaries? The whole thing is unclear, and it seems as though it might be separate from the other report which seems to concern DNC and RNC contributions.
Back to the text of the Jerusalem Post article:
… Jewish donors contribut[e] a whopping 50% of funds received by the Democratic Party and 25% to the Republican Party, [researcher] Troy says.
Although it’s still not clear, that may support the idea that these only involve contributions to the parties themselves, not to individual candidates. But now it’s time to go to Troy’s research itself, which can be found here. A relevant excerpt:
… Jews donate as much as 50 percent of the funds raised by Democrats and 25 percent of the funds raised by Republicans.
As much as – what on earth does that refer to? The document by Troy contains a long long history of the Jewish vote in the US, but it surprised me by being more of a history than a study. In fact, I couldn’t find the basis for remarks such as this, on which the 50% claim seems to be based:
In the 2016 presidential race the Jewish financial vote remains disproportionately important – with estimates that Jewish donors contribute 50 percent of the funds to the Democratic Party and 25 percent to the Republican Party.
“Estimates” by whom? Based on what? Donations to the parties? Or to candidates? Or to both?
I couldn’t find the answers to any of these questions. Later, on page 7, I found another reference to the supposed figure, but it added nothing:
… Jews donate as much as 50 percent of the funds raised by Democrats and 25 percent of the funds raised by Republicans.
“As much as”? What does that mean? Again, no answers, and no footnotes or source – just the bare statement. I see no reason to give it any credence, although of course it might be true. It does seem as though the Troy report is the source of the statistic that Mike K had cited and huxley mentioned. If you can find any other evidence about the ultimate source, be my guest. But in my experience it’s not unusual for these internet “truths” to be based on very little.
I also found this information about large individual donors in 2016 to Clinton or Trump:
According to the latest Federal Election Commission disclosure, American Jewish donors funneled more than $90 million into the presidential campaigns of Democratic nominee Clinton and her Republican opponent Trump. …
Making their contributions through campaign committees, joint fundraising entities and allied super-PACs, Clinton’s five biggest financial backers are Jewish, and so are Trump’s top two.
That’s close to the 2 to 1 ratio, but it involves a very small number of large donors:
The largest individual donor in this cycle has been Donald Sussman, a founding partner at the Paloma Partners hedge fund, based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Thus far, he’s given more than $20 million to Clinton’s campaign, mostly through a super PAC supporting her bid, Priorities USA Action.
Clinton’s four other top donors are JB and Mary Kathryn Pritzker, Haim and Cheryl Saban, George Soros and S. Daniel Abraham. Along with Sussman, they have collectively contributed $69.7 million to the campaign, according to an assessment by Bloomberg Politics.
No surprise that Pritzger and Soros were in there, Soros being a person of Jewish ethnicity who’s not just a secular Jews but by his own admission somewhat anti-Semitic.
Other prominent Jewish Americans who have poured money into Clinton’s bid are filmmaker Steven Spielberg, fashion designer Ralph Lauren, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and entertainment industry executive David Geffen.
No surprise there. As for Trump donors:
Trump’s largest funder is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has a propensity to donate lavishly to Republican nominees and whose donation to Trump was $10.5 million. …
The New York Times reported late last month that the Las Vegas billionaire had given up hope Trump would prevail on November 8, and decided instead to focus on down-ballot races and on trying to secure a GOP majority in Congress.
I guess he was wrong about Trump that year.
[Adelson] remains the single largest overall contributor in the country for 2016, as his family has given two super PACs supporting Senate and House Republicans $20 million each.
Trump’s second biggest donor is Bernard Marcus, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who co-founded Home Depot. He’s given $7 million to the former reality television star.
None of this tells us what percentage of the candidates’ donations were from Jews, nor does it tell us that for each party’s candidates in general. And this article (with the same limitations) offers a list of the top 15 contributors for the 2020 election. Five of them gave a total of about $142 million to Republicans, while the others gave about $176.4 to Democrats. That’s not as wide a disparity as one might think. But again, that’s only large individual donations (in 2020) and it doesn’t tell us what proportion of the total that is, although I’m pretty sure it’s quite significant.
However, this article contains an estimate of total spending in that 2020 election, by all parties. I have no idea if it’s correct, but the estimate falls somewhere between $11 billion and $14 billion. Those large individual donations I just discussed would be only a tiny fraction of that.
So I haven’t been able to find any substantiation for that 50% claim that makes any sense or seems based on any evidence.
